James Brown Song Recorded In 1970 To Be Released This Month
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A new James Brown song recorded more than fifty years ago will be released later this month.
According to The Source, the song, titled “We Got To Change,” will be released on Feb. 16 by UMe/Republic Records. The unreleased song will be packaged as the title track of a three-song EP by Brown, which includes the music legend’s earliest recordings alongside bassists Phelps “Catfish” Collins and P-Funk icon “Bootsy” Collins.
The recording session for “We Got To Change” took place on August 16 1970 in Criteria Studios in Miami, Fl. The song also includes contributions from renowned “Funky Drummer” Clyde Stubblefield and singer Bobby Byrd, two of Brown’s most trusted collaborators.
“We Got To Change” is also among the first incarnations of Brown’s backing band, The J.B.’s, which would work closely with the “Godfather of Soul” over the subsequent decade. In 2019, Republic released Live at Home with His Bad Self, a concert album from Brown recorded on Oct. 1, 1969 at the Bell Auditorium in Augusta, Ga.
Despite having passed in 2006, James Brown’s legacy still looms large. On Feb. 19 and Feb. 20, days following We Got To Change‘s release, A&E will premiere James Brown: Say It Loud, a four-part documentary directed by Deborah Riley-Draper. Executive produced by Mick Jagger, Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson, Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter, Shawn Gee, and others, Say It Loud will touch on the multifaceted life and career of Brown, as well as his impact on music and society.
In 2023, Brown was inducted into The Cincinnati Black Music Walk of Fame as part of its third class. In addition to Brown, other honorees included The Deele, L.A. Reid and Babyface, Louise Shropshire, and Philippé Wynne. That year, the pioneer also received his flowers from Snoop Dogg, who says he was bestowed with the tag of “music’s hardest working man” during an encounter with Brown prior to his death.
“James Brown came to see me,” the Death Row Records owner said on his Audible Original, Words + Music: From the Streets, to the Suites. “And the most important sh*t James Brown said was, ‘You are the hardest working man in the industry. It’s your job to take it where I couldn’t take it.’ And as I’m watching me right now… it’s like he seen it.”
Pre-order James Brown “We Got To Change” here.
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